Notre Dame on defense as season opens Saturday

School has mounted vigorous defense against claims that standards have slipped

By

SharonTerlep

WatchND.tv

Preseason media day at Notre Dame Stadium.

For years, Notre Dame football fans had an easy target when it came to assigning blame for the mediocrity of their storied Fighting Irish.

The university’s notoriously stingy admissions standards, a picky admissions director and onerous academic demands, they said, kept out the best players.

While the school touted its teams’ stratospheric graduation rates and high grade-point averages, fans and analysts fixated on stories of spurned superstars such as T.J. Duckett, a top prep player who, after a prickly interview at Notre Dame, went on play for Michigan State and become a 2002 first-round draft pick in the NFL. In 2012, Notre Dame radio announcer Allen Pinkett was suspended from his job for three games for suggesting the Irish could benefit from “a few bad characters” on the team.

“You can’t have a football team full of choir boys,” Pinkett said.

‘No one is admitted without providing evidence of a high-school performance that demonstrates that he or she can be successful at Notre Dame.’
Don Bishop, Notre Dame admissions department

Since 2012, when current coach Brian Kelly led the Irish to the national-championship game, the griping over academic toughness has fallen away. Notre Dame settled comfortably into a new persona: It was a school with smart kids that could also win.

But this month the school announced an investigation of possible academic cheating that has led to the benching of four football players, three of them prominent ones. This comes on the heels of several other academic incidents, including last season’s suspension of quarterback Everett Golson over what he called poor academic judgment. Now, Notre Dame’s tough academic standards and the record of its new admissions chief have been thrust back into view. This time the question is a bit different: Are the school’s academic expectations too high for the football players it is admitting?

“We stumbled; something went wrong; let’s find out what went wrong,” said former longtime Notre Dame admissions director Dan Saracino, who is now a higher-education consultant.

The current investigation involves reports of what school president the Rev. John I. Jenkins described as “academic dishonesty.” Jenkins, in an Aug. 15 news conference, said the school had received evidence that the players and other students turned in work completed by someone else. The school named those involved as senior wide receiver DaVaris Daniels, senior defensive end Ishaq Williams, junior cornerback KeiVarae Russell and linebacker Kendall Moore, a fifth-year senior. Among them, Daniels has struggled academically before. He was suspended last season for poor grades.

The players either declined to comment or didn’t respond to calls seeking comment. Daniels’s father, former NFL defensive lineman Phillip Daniels, told the local NBC affiliate that his son has done nothing wrong.

‘You can’t have a football team full of choir boys.’
Allen Pinkett, Notre Dame alumnus, broadcaster and former player

The players face reprimands that range from an “F” on their work to expulsion, depending on the outcome of the investigation.

Defensive back Eilar Hardy became the fifth football player held out of practice and games as part of the university’s investigation, a school official confirmed Thursday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported that the school’s internal probe has been wrapped up.

Notre Dame’s men’s basketball team also has had academic problems involving a high-profile player. Jerian Grant, the team’s leading scorer, was suspended in December for the rest of the season over what he described on the team’s website as an “academic matter.”

In the news conference this month, Jenkins forcefully denied that the school’s admissions standards have slipped or that the school has changed the criteria it uses for admitting students. Don Bishop, Notre Dame’s head of admissions, declined an interview but said in a statement that, while Notre Dame doesn’t have minimum requirements for grades or test scores, “No one is admitted without providing evidence of a high-school performance that demonstrates that he or she can be successful at Notre Dame.”

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